Could Zune Be Getting The Boot? Or Maybe a Reboot?

We have all been wondering what the future holds for Zune. Microsoft as it seems may be avoiding a direct answer anytime they are asked. Mary-Jo Foley of  ZDNet says that her sources tell her that there is something in the works that could give us the answers we have been looking for. It is a set of services that Microsoft’s Entertainment and Deviced unit is developing codenamed “Ventura”.

Ventura apparently will center around music and video, leading us to ask “where does Zune tie into this equation?” Perhaps this will just add extras to the zune service but with Microsoft staying mum on the subject how will we know? ZDNet found a job description for Ventura that won’t help any but will add more confusion to the situation:

The Ventura Media Services team is looking for a highly motivated Software Development Engineer to help drive some great new service innovation.

Who are we? We are Ventura Media Services – an agile team working on the beginning of some very large scale projects. We incubate, innovate and iterate. We are all about building services the right way. The team is a tight group of music and video lovers that create services and experiences revolving around music\video discovery and consumption. We are not afraid to try new things in the name of pushing the bleeding edge of technology.

As a member of the team, you will work closely with all of our partners to release features on a rapidly iterative development cycle. You will get the chance to work with other IEB product teams to help deliver epic end-to-end
scenarios across all 3 screens.

In this position you will have the chance to help choose direction and drive innovation on some of the most cutting edge media services. Think large scale. Think Azure. Being a web and services group, our goal is to release early
and often while maintaining high quality. If you are a proven developer that likes to drive innovation, then this is the place for you!

I have no clue what to summize from all of this but I am interested in hearing any theories. What do you think? Are the giving Zune the ax or will they be adding more features to it?